A Lie travels half way across the World before the Truth has a chance to put on its Pants.

Do you believe that Satanic Ritual Abuse exists?

I have borrowed the following paragraph from Wikipedia which explains SRA.

“Satanic ritual abuse (SRA, sometimes known as ritual abuse, ritualistic abuse, organised abuse, sadistic ritual abuse, and other variants) was the subject of a moral panic that originated in the United States in the 1980s, spreading throughout the country and eventually to many parts of the world by the late 1990s. Allegations of SRA involved reports of physical and sexual abuse of people in the context of occult or Satanic rituals. In its most extreme form, SRA involves a worldwide organisation including the wealthy and powerful of the world elite in which children are abducted or bred for sacrifices, pornography and prostitution.”

Every once in a while on Social Media I see people who firmly believe in a great conspiracy which involves “Illuminati”, “Freemasons” and secret societies. The people promoting the ideas are otherwise good, intelligent people. Their belief is that there has been a massive cover-up, which would have to involve millions of people. I wrote extensively about this in the book in a chapter called “Dreadophiles“, in which I discuss the topic of Child Sexual Abuse (CSA). Much of what many people believe about the topic is not supported by historical fact.

The entire thesis of SRA comes from a book published in 1980 entitled; “Michelle Remembers”, the concept of SRA did not exist before this book. I have stated this fact many times that SRA was invented in 1980, but there are those who will claim that it has existed for centuries. No amount of proof will convince believers of SRA was invented in 1980. They will cite paintings and myths and ancient stories, and while it is true that Human Sacrifice to Gods has existed as long as human beings, there is nothing in history to show that “Illuminati” or “Freemasons” sacrifice babies or children to Satan. Despite many investigations, no link has ever been found to secret societies, or “Cabals” or Satanists sacrificing babies.

Unfortunately the much discredited book also invented another concept; the belief by Psychologists that traumatic memories could be blocked out and be recovered by various psychological techniques. Again, up until 1980 nobody had heard of or believed in Fractured or Recovered Memory Syndrome, it has since been used in courts to prosecute people for rape and sexual abuse even there is no other way of proving the rape or abuse. Funnily enough, the same techniques and theories are used on people who believe they were “beamed up” into UFO’s and anally probed by little green men.  There is of course another condition in which memory can be lost which is called Amnesia, which an entirely different concept. Although widely accepted now, FRMS did not exist before the book in 1980, it is interesting to note that all of the papers written on the topic were written after the book. Also interesting that when this technique is used, it is almost exclusively used in cases of Sexual Abuse and being probed by “Little Green Men in UFO’s”.

SRA began a Moral Panic from the 1980’s on but faded into obscurity as every Police Force in the world investigated cases of SRA but not one police officer ever came up with any evidence. What is interesting is that the Moral Panic was spread by Social Workers with the aid of the Media. In the 80’s every talk-show host had some waning celebrity on their show claiming to have been abused. Many books were written and many TV shows did fictional shows about “Secret Societies” and the stories became more exaggerated by the day. The Witch Hunt went as far as a Sheriff driving around town with a child who accused almost everyone she saw. There were thousands of prosecutions, often based on nothing more than accusations and no evidence presented. The most egregious case was the McMartin Pre-school Trial which was the longest trial in USA history and the most expensive, but didn’t result in a single prosecution. An interesting movie starring James Woods is widely available on the internet.

In the UK a similar Moral Panic called the Cleveland Inquiry saw many innocent people charged and convicted of CSA based on an extremely flawed medical theory called Reflex Anal Dilatation (RAD). I met the original theorist of this in 2017 when he testified in a Shaken Baby case in Ireland. In the court I witnessed this dangerous doctor exaggerate and give misleading evidence about SBS. After testifying I tried to talk to him on the topic of SBS but I got the impression he didn’t want to discuss anything. The conversation ended when I mentioned people wrongly accused of abuse. Because of his theory, hundreds of people were wrongly convicted. An actual study of RAD showed that the signs and symptoms are found in about 50% of children, which debunks the theory.

In Ireland there was a famous case widely known as the Dr Moira Woods Scandal, in which hundreds of parents were wrongly accused of sexually abusing their own child. Dr Woods was brought down by one father who eventually forced the Medical Council to hold a Fitness to Practice hearing against her. She was found guilty of professional conduct but it took 16 years for the father Eddie Hernon to be vindicated.

Online in social media now, we are currently seeing self appointed “Pedophile Hunters” entrapping men and enticing them to commit crime. I have no sympathy for these men who attempt to groom children online. The comments online are overwhelmingly in support of these “Pedophile Hunters”. These “Hunters” are generating these crimes, no actual children are involved. The perpetrators are enticed into committing a crime, the “meeting” is recorded on video and posted online before the Police arrive. Essentially these “Hunters” are creating crimes.

In one video I saw a man who appeared to have a mental illness, possibly Asperger’s, thought he was meeting a child. You could tell by his mannerisms and speech that he obviously wasn’t a “Rocket Scientist”. I don’t condone what he did, but I would be concerned that these “Hunters” would likely cause the death by suicide of some of these perpetrators, especially people who are mentally ill. In one case in the UK a Pediatrician was driven from her home because someone had confused the word Pedophile with Pediatrician.

I don’t agree with Vigilantes or people setting themselves as heroes in their own mind. I have met far too many Social Workers, Child Abuse Pediatricians and Psychologists who have this mindset of; “protecting children at all costs and if some innocent people are wrongly accused, then that’s the price we must pay to keep children safe” kind of attitude. I have seen doctors convinced of abuse and when I or a colleague present alternate causes, their mind wont allow them to believe anything other than child abuse. Once these people believe they are saving a child, even the imaginary children the “Hunters” save, they will not be swayed from their course. I have even seen this mindset in Police Officers who will stray from normal investigative procedure and secure a prosecution at all costs.

Justice is supposed to be predicated on the principle that 10 guilty men go free before 1 innocent man is convicted, it is also the reason why we have Juries and convictions based on a unanimous verdict. A persons Good Name and their Freedom and Liberty are too important for us to get wrong, and  yet we frequently do. We have seen many celebrities accused of sexual abuse and found not guilty. Even when found not guilty, this is not vindication, which can take years to achieve. In the most famous miscarriage of justice in Ireland, Nora Wall, a former Nun at a Care Home for children was convicted of rape. After the conviction, 4 days after, it was found that the “Victim” had fabricated the rape, and it was not the first time she had wrongly accused someone.

For the wrongly accused, there are devastating consequences. Many people have committed suicide even years after vindication or a not-guilty verdict. When accused your name will appear in the media, you will likely lose your job, partner and maybe your house before the case even comes to court. For sexual abuse victims, many also suffer life-long consequences and suicides are common among victims. Many people also believe that adult rape and sexual assault are under-reported or that few cases are prosecuted.  The landscape of Child Sexual Abuse cases is even more disturbing.  When Social Services are handling these cases, many don’t even get reported to Police so the alleged perpetrator is never investigated. Of course social workers don’t need Police to take children from their parents, the allegation is often enough to remove the child, and any other children, for life.

Almost everything that most people believe about sexual assault is wrong, even professionals are guilty of this. In the last few years a few countries have introduced legislation to castrate perpetrators who sexually assault children. In many cases the Public called for this and it received broad support. What many don’t know is that Castration doesn’t work, professionals have known this for decades. And how exactly do you “Castrate” a female offender? “Castration” doesn’t involve amputation or the severing of “appendages”, a drug is given which supposedly reduces Libido by interfering with Testosterone. In many cases offenders are given a reduced sentence if they agree to take the drug, this is complete madness.

The drive or urges to sexually assault are a function of the brain and not the reproductive organs. Let me put it another way, you don’t need to use your sex organs to sexually assault someone. We have known, or should have known for years that Chemical Castration doesn’t work. I must apologize in advance for bringing up Homosexuality in the same piece as a story on Child Sexual Abuse. There is no connection between Pedophilia and Homosexuality, studies have shown that the incidence of Pedophilia among Gay and Lesbian People is far lower than with Heterosexuals. But there is one important connection that cannot be ignored.

Up until the 1970’s, Homosexuality was illegal and many Gay Men were forced to be chemically castrated by courts. A stunning example being Alan Turing, the genius who decoded the “Enigma Machine” and shortened WWII by years saving countless lives, was convicted of being a Homosexual. Turing eventually grew female breasts from the drugs and committed suicide, a know side effect of the drugs. The world lost a beautiful genius who could have contributed a great deal to Humanity. He should have been treated as a hero, but instead suffered a great injustice. We should know from the cases of men convicted and castrated that although castration was performed, it did not prevent their attraction to other men, it did not prevent them engaging in sexual activity and the entire practice was a disastrous failure and monstrous injustice.

To give a Pedophile a shorter sentence on the basis of  agreeing to Chemical Castration is insane. We know that diagnosed Pedophiles are incurable. Aside from Pedophiles, there are also Psychopaths, Sexual Predators and individuals who we know will re-offend when released from prison. Again, it is insane to release an individual into Society knowing that they will commit a crime, obviously this applies not only to predators, but to anyone who is a danger to Society. With the current system, a predator must be released upon serving a sentence, the only possible solution to this is to see them as mentally ill, this allows them to be locked up forever.

In the entire book there is only 1 Graph, a picture I gleaned from Department of Justice statistics in the USA. It shows the ages of offenders and the incidence at any given age. Over 80% of sexual assaults of children are committed by 14 year olds, 70% of offenders are boys. At 14 a child is far too young to be diagnosed a Pedophile. Obviously there is a huge problem in our society that is being over-looked, Puberty. In the nearly 20 years since this graph and the report came out, nothing has been done. Let me put that in perspective, we know that we could prevent nearly 80% of all sexual abuse of children, but are doing nothing about it.

When you look at other aspects of this topic you see incredible stupidity, a direct result of the Moral Panic about Pedophilia that we are currently experiencing. We see cases of 15 year olds engaging in consensual sex, and being jailed and branded sex offenders as a result. As parents, we don’t want our 15 year old becoming a mother or father, and we probably don’t want to think of them having sex. We tell them don’t have sex and even make laws, but tell me this; If someone gave you a Ferrari at the age of puberty and told you not to drive it, do you think you could abstain? With hormones running through their body, and not yet being mature enough to abstain from acting on their impulses, is it reasonable to expect children to go through this without support?

I’m not advocating lowering the Age of Consent, but to criminalize children for crimes against themselves, is a step too far. Many young teens have been prosecuted for sending naughty pictures to other teens, stupid maybe, but how can you be victim and perpetrator at the same time? In the USA, Federal Law prescribes twice the term of imprisonment for a boy who takes a picture of his erection than attempted murder. In one absurd case, a 5 year old, to young to be prosecuted, was placed on the Sex Offender Register. In Kindergarten he nuzzled the breasts of his teacher. Under Mandatory Reporting, the teacher felt she had no choice to report or she would be prosecuted. The Police had no choice to list the child under a federal law called the Adam Walsh Act. This is how far the hysteria has gone.

I too have been wrongly accused as have my colleagues. I cant say that I lost any sleep over being falsely accused on social media, but one of my colleagues did suffer as a result. A conspiracy theorist fabricated a story that anyone who helped families against social services were actually scuppering cases in order to get more children removed into “Care”. At one point the theory was that I was running a child trafficking operation, but of course not a scrap of evidence was ever produced. The conspiracy theorist actually went to Police with his theories but was laughed out of the stations he went to. After years of abusing and falsely accusing many people, I decided to get all those people together and make complaints to Police. In the first case against him the trial is in 2 days time.

Nevertheless, mud sticks. I lost several Facebook “Friends” overnight, again, not losing any sleep and many people still believe a myth. I abhor Conspiracy Theory regardless of the source, but I don’t hate any person. Fantastic stories are really interesting, they make great novels, tv shows and movies. Real life is boring and mundane. I can see why, given a choice between an interesting story that makes someone look bad and is a complete fabrication, versus the boring truth where nothing interesting happened, I can see why a lie travels across the world before the truth puts on his pants. I can understand it but I cannot condone it.

What I also cannot understand is why people who themselves have been wrongly accused by social workers or who have been victims of the Child Abuse Industry, are actually helping the Child Abuse Industry by promoting propaganda and creating hysteria? No folks, Pedophilia, Child Abuse and Neglect are not at epidemic proportions, the Crime Statistics and Prosecution Statistics don’t support this theory.  No, there are not millions of Pedophiles out there, or if there is there is no evidence of it. In Ireland, there are thousand of reports of CSA every year but only about 540 cases are “confirmed” by social workers, out of 540 only 130 or so are reported to Police and only 40 prosecutions take place every year on average. Other countries have equally low statistics. According to my own estimates, only 1 in every 184 cases of child abuse is ever prosecuted. Social services cannot justify the ever increasing numbers of children be removed from parents and placed in “Care”. We are not a nation of child abusers despite the conspiracy theories.

By ramping up the hysteria about child abuse and allowing outrageous statistics to go unchallenged, we are allowing more children to be harmed by being removed and placed in danger in “Care”. By supporting conspiracy theories and wrongly accusing people, we are giving a license to remove children to the Child Abuse Industry. Saving a child is the most heroic action a human being being can undertake. It feels good to save a child but let’s not confuse saving children with the actions of vigilantes or self appointed heroes saving imaginary children. Removing a child from a fit and loving parent creates a wound so deep in that child that we have no way of measuring it. Lets not confuse feeling good with the belief that we are doing the right thing for children.

In everything that we do we should be guided by evidence and not accept the word of conspiracy theorists whether they are social workers, doctors, or people who have been victims of a cruel and unjust system. Whenever people are being branded or accused of a crime, ask for evidence. To wrongly accuse someone can have devastating consequences for them. Taking the law into our own hands has never ended well, if not for the “hunter”, then for their victim. The KKK comes to mind and many other vigilantes and conspiracy theorists. If you spread conspiracy theory or take the law into your own hands you are no better than a social worker doing the same to a child and their innocent parents. Give the Truth a chance to put on its pants before you spread a Lie.

Joe